Deputies Hunt 2 Escapees Hiding In Seminole Woods

GENEVA — Robert LeMasters and Brian Smith have spent 19 days hiding in east Seminole County's dense woods. The two escaped felons are dangerous and know police are looking for them.

They eluded capture Tuesday, possibly in a canoe on the Econlockhatchee River. They left behind a lot of beer cans, the smoky remains of a campfire and a sign taunting their pursuers.

''We're watching you. Don't forget to look up,'' the sign said.

The abandoned campsite was part of a strange scene Tuesday along Snow Hill Road, where camouflaged SWAT team members roamed swampy woods and shotgun-toting deputy sheriffs walked a mile section of asphalt in search of the convicts.

LeMasters, 25, and Smith, 22, escaped Jan. 19 from the Cape Orlando Community Correctional Center on the Bee Line Expressway in Orange County.

But the trail to the alligator-infested swamp south of Geneva started in December with a $50,000 burglary at Bridges' Antiques on State Road 46, west of Sanford, sheriff's Sgt. Steve Walthers said Tuesday.

Detectives had few leads until Monday, when a Sanford man offered to sell a rare chair to a Casselberry antiques dealer, Walthers said. His arrest led to the search of two houses and the recovery of 90 percent of the stolen goods, Walthers said.

Officers arrested three other people in the case. One of them told detectives about escaped felons living in the woods near the Econlockhatchee River, a favorite place of alligators.

Detectives went to a road near the convicts' campsite Tuesday morning and saw a woman walking nearby, her pants caked with mud.

Walthers said the woman was LeMasters' friend and had been taking food and supplies to the felons in the woods.

Mary Ann Clark, 18, Sanford, was in jail without bond Tuesday, charged with aiding an escapee.

Detectives figured LeMasters and Smith were still in the woods. Walthers said the convicts were armed because the two are suspected in the Jan. 31 burglary of a Chuluota home.

Three handguns, a rifle and shotgun were stolen.

Capt. Roy Hughey, sheriff's spokesman, said detectives knew LeMasters and Smith were dangerous because of their criminal records.

LeMasters was serving a five-year prison term after being convicted of burglary of a vehicle, shooting into an occupied vehicle and aggravated battery.

He was charged in 1986 with chasing a 17-year-old girl along an Oviedo road, shooting out three of her car tires and beating her repeatedly in an attempt to steal her car.

Walthers said the case demanded use of the special weapons and tactics team, so at noon Tuesday two squads of men wearing camouflage uniforms headed into the woods near Snow Hill Road at the Econlockhatchee River. They were armed with automatic weapons.

The SWAT team searched for five hours, finding the campsite but not the two escapees.

Hughey said LeMasters and Smith might have fled in a canoe.

SWAT team members found a place where a canoe apparently was dragged into the river.

A Volusia County sheriff's helicopter searched the river for the escapees but did not find them. About 25 deputies, detectives and SWAT team members aided in the search.